


With Great Admiration

by MrMich



Series: The Last Goodbye [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Spoilers, spoilers for Episode 28
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 21:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19185658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrMich/pseuds/MrMich
Summary: Aubrey and Duck read the letters.Duck picks up his letter and flips it over to open it. His fingers hesitate over how neatly the envelope is sealed; how clean it is.The trademarks Ned usually leaves behind when writing letters are all absent. The envelope isn’t lopsided, the corners aren’t creased or bent like it had been jammed haphazardly in a pocket before getting to the recipient. There are no rings or droplets of Diet Coke Feisty Cherry staining the edges. It doesn’t feel real.





	With Great Admiration

**Author's Note:**

> Episode 28 killed me

Duck and Aubrey see the letters exactly where Kirby told them they’d be. They are laid out on the counter. Their names are scrawled neatly across the backs, just underneath the green logo of the Crytonomica that’s stamped at the top.

Duck picks up his letter and flips it over to open it. His fingers hesitate over how neatly the envelope is sealed; how clean it is.

The trademarks Ned usually leaves behind when writing letters are all absent. The envelope isn’t lopsided, the corners aren’t creased or bent like it had been jammed haphazardly in a pocket before getting to the recipient. There are no rings or droplets of Diet Coke Feisty Cherry staining the edges. It doesn’t feel real.

It seems fake, like it should be one last con that Ned pulls on the two of them before waltzing back into the Cryptonomica, trademark grin stretched across his face as he laughs boisterously before telling them “Gotcha!” and teasing them for falling for his cunning ruse.

Duck brushes his fingers over the edge of the flap. He tucks one nail underneath. And then he looks over at Aubrey.

She’s staring blankly at her letter, making no move to open it. Her fingers are clenched around the edges, crinkling the previously smooth corners of the envelope.

Duck catches Aubrey’s eye and inclines his head reassuringly towards her, shifting just a few steps closer. Still looking at her, he slides his nail further under the flap. She nods and traces the seal on her own envelope.

They break the seals together. The rip of the paper is almost obscenely loud in the quiet of the Cryptonomica.

It’s in an almost pointed silence that the two of them stand as they read the final words of their friend.

Duck’s eyes trace over the words, Ned’s familiar handwriting slanting across the page.

It is… hard. The words all stand out to him, ones that Ned had never said out loud before, though he could easily hear them in Ned’s voice. Ned just never was the type to be genuinely heartfelt, always awkwardly laughing his way out of any conversation that came close to being emotional.

But it’s all written down. One last goodbye, though for much different reasons than what Ned had thought when he wrote it.

Duck reads it again, taking in the words, tasting them as he takes a quiet moment to mourn his longtime friend. He traces the handwriting with a finger, lingering on the sign off. 

> ‘With great admiration,  
>  Ned “Vamoose” Chicane’

Duck had never imagined that it could end like this. He’d been so caught up in his own sudden mortality that he forgot to remember that his friends were just as fragile.

And… now Ned was gone.

Finally, Duck turns to Aubrey. He clears his throat a bit, half because he needs to get past the lump stuck in it and half to get her attention without forcing her to pull away from her own letter.

It works a little too well; Aubrey must have been in her own head. She startles at the sudden sound and the paper slips out of her hands.

The two of them stare down at it as it flutters to land facedown to the floor of the Cryptonomica. Aubrey’s eyes are bright and glassy as she looks at it. It’s just lying on the hardwood floors, folded in on itself.

Duck waits a moment for her to reach for it, but when she makes no move to pick it up he bends down himself.

He grabs the corner of it and stands back up. It’s just a split second as the letter flaps slightly in his grasp, but his eyes land on the last two lines of the letter and he finds himself reading the goodbye Ned had made to Aubrey.

> ‘With love,  
>  Edmund Kelly Chicane’

Now, Duck hasn’t ever been one to snoop; not since he was eighteen and he had a whole world of responsibility that tried to burden his shoulders. Not since it cost him more to think about what other people were doing than it did to just blind himself to everything but his own life and family.

So Duck pretends he didn’t see anything. He takes the letter and gently presses it back into Aubrey’s unsteady hands, making sure she has a hold on it before letting go.

Duck knows surely as the “Vamoose” that is written on his own letter that this goodbye to Aubrey is something for her eyes alone. He turns instead back to his letter. He doesn’t read it again, but he does just look at it. He looks at where Ned had smudged some of the letters, the blue ink trailing off. He looks at the loop and the curl of his name. Of both their names. Duck feels like he’s been standing there for an eternity, though it also doesn’t feel long enough.

The two of them spend a moment longer in the Cryptonomica. Then they fold up their letters, seal them back into the envelopes, and leave.

Out of the corner of his eye, Duck sees Aubrey glance back just once.

He keeps his own eyes forward.

It’s hours later, as they’re sitting together in a corner of the Amnesty Lodge, that Aubrey asks about the letters.

“Hey, Duck? How-” her voice breaks, and she tries again. “how did he sign his name on your letter? Ned, I mean,” she continues, although they both know that there is no one else she could be talking about.

And Duck, knowing why she is asking, just says, “Aww, you know, one of his made up middle names again.” His voice is thick. “It was Vamoose, this time. Gotta add that one to the list, I guess. Why? How’d he sign yours?”

“Oh, uh, the same. Yeah, typical Ned, am I right?” She blinks and rubs the tears out of her eyes with the edge of her shirtsleeve. “A mystery to the very end.”

She smiles and coughs out a little laugh. There’s little humor in it. She’s still holding her letter in her hands, absently smoothing her thumb over the wrinkles she had made in the envelope earlier.

Duck looks at Aubrey, at her chipped nail polish and air of exhaustion. Knows that if he looked in a mirror, he’d see the same tired lines under his own eyes, the same slumped shoulders.

He speaks. “He uh, he wrote my letter ‘with great admiration.’”

He doesn’t really know why he said that. There’s no olive branch to offer, no reason to make Aubrey think about Ned’s last words to the two of them. But they are words of comfort, somehow, he thinks.

Aubrey clutches her letter to her chest and looks at Duck. He knows she sees the same exhaustion he saw in her. Knows that it’s her first time really looking at him since Ned died last week. She meets his eyes, and he watches as her tears slip down over her face and drip off her chin.

“He wrote mine with love.”

She starts to sob in earnest. Duck reaches forward and wraps Aubrey into a hug, tucking her close. She clutches at his back as together they mourn the death of their friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking about making a fic from Aubrey's point of view, let me know if you actually want that to be written. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> I'm [Scratcho-McDatcho](https://scratcho-mcdatcho.tumblr.com) on tumblr


End file.
